Chang's Extreme Makeover

Imagine being away from your bedroom for a week and returning to see everything covered in foil... but in a stylish way.

I'm too lazy to tell the story, so please read it here.

Movember is almost here!

Have you heard of Movember before, if so move a paragraph down, if not you should go to this website and read all about it (or just check the end of the post...). Now that you know, you can also go to the next paragraph!

Are you taking part on it this year? You should... it's a very easy way to help, and it's not that difficult to do. It's not like you have to feed it, for it to grow. You just need to style it! I'm going to participate! Join the Movember and bring your friends along! =) Girls can also participate with support and by not laughing... =)

A short explanation: Movember is a portmanteau of the words 'moustache' and 'November' (in Wikipedia). It is also an event run by a charity named Movember Foundation, that aims to raise awareness and funds for fighting against prostate cancer and other men's health issues. The event takes place in different countries, and although it doesn't take place in Portugal it is never too late to bring more countries into this fight. It's very easy to participate just shave your face clean on the 1st of Movember and then let your moustache grow during the whole month. Take pictures and have fun while you help! And don't mind the mockery... I know I won't mind it. =)

I'll let you know how my participation goes!

Protected Planet . Net

Last week on one of the many side events of the Convention on Biological Diversity's tenth Conference of Parties (COP 10) was launched the website Protected Planet.

This website has information about a huge number of protected areas around the world and hopes to inform and alert people to the importance of having these protected areas and of biodiversity. It also wishes to involve people in the improvement and development of the existing information on the different protected areas.

In the Protected Planet website you can edit the geometry of a protected area to match its real form, you can share the pictures that you took there, share your experiences and comment on the information provided by others. But maybe the video on this page will explain it better than me. The same for this page.

This is a new place where people can contribute to the Conservation of Biodiversity and to expand the knowledge on our Planet. And they will be collaborating directly with different experts and scientists that will make sure that the data introduced is correct and accurate.

I think the website is amazing and you should really give it a look. I am also proud to say that this website was developed at UNEP-WCMC, the place where I work, here in Cambridge. =) But you need not worry, because I didn't take part in the project... ;) but James did... and that might not be good =P (joking).

This project has been around the news both in the UK and in Portugal on the last week. Unfortunately most, if not all of them, seem to forget where was the tool built... so I thought that I should let all the 17 of you know, so that you can spread the word. ;) eheheh

Don't forget to visit it!

PS: Another thing I forgot to mention, the website was built in Ruby on Rails.

The Fall is here

I still haven't finished tiding up my bedroom, so still no pictures of my house... sorry about that!

But this post is just about a picture that I've been wanting to take for a while. The trees that surround the road that leads to my work are are covered in the colours of Fall. And it fills me with such a good feeling when I leave work everyday that I really wanted to share with you. I almost forget that the dark Winter is approaching and that it won't be long until I leave work in the middle of the night...

Hope you like it!



PS: It would be much better if the sun was shinning, but when it was... I didn't have my camera...

10

10 months have passed since I moved to Cambridge, 10 months have passed since I started working. And this last week I have been missing Portugal, my family and my friends a lot. And even Mariana is in Portugal this week... so "as saudades" are in huge values.

So to celebrate 'as saudades' of my loved ones (Mariana, Family and Friends) I felt like posting these pictures that I took at the "Praia do Navio" in Santa Cruz, this Summer. In a pseudo-poetic way... =P

Intra-roads: Alcácer do Sal

Alcácer do Sal

New house \o/

I've just moved to a new place here in Cambridge and after one week and a half without Internet I'm back here!

Moving houses was quite the task, it's amazing the amounts of things that one is able to collect in 9 months in a house. But, even so, the biggest challenge has been to find furniture, buy furniture, assemble furniture and even disassemble furniture to assemble it again. Yes, because I've moved to an unfurnished house. But now it's almost perfect! Still lots of boxes to send to recycle and some things left to buy, but it's looking good! =)

I've moved to this house with two Portuguese guys who I met here in Cambridge, and things are running smooth so far, I must say that I'm really enjoying this, even with a back pain.

With the moving I ended up having to drive two vans, which is very cool. I could own one of those... it's the closest I've been to driving a lorry.
I drove an Opel (Vauxhall here in the UK) Vivaro:


And a LDV (I didn't even know this brand):

(The smallest one, I think).

Besides driving these lovely vans I also spent 8hours in IKEA... and I must say that it is too much... way too much! But we got some nice things. =)



We managed to fill 7 trolleys in total, but 3 of them were with big pieces of furniture... but still it was a challenge to move them around.

In this week and a half my bedroom has gone from a perfectly balanced pile of clothes, bags and papers, to an almost 80% tidy bedroom. But there's still some work to do! =)

Now our next challenge is to handle our garbage... here in the UK each house has two bins 'assigned' to them. A blue one for recycling (everything from cardboard, and plastic to glass) and a black one for general waste. Each of those bins is collected every other week, and the collection dates are different from street to street and zone to zone. On my previous house they collected at Wednesdays at 9am, so last week I put the blue bin outside on Wednesday, 'cos I thought I saw some blue bins from neighbours outside... but that wasn't our day. On Wednesday night I saw and confirmed that the bins were outside to be collected in the morning, and I went to my neighbours bins and checked the colour... it was the general waste one... So I thought 'tomorrow morning I wake up at 8h and put the bin outside... and so I did, but the collection truck had passed... at 7h! So now we are stuck with the general waste bin for another week without collection... and the previous tenants left it full... no fun in that.

At least we were able to get rid of most cardboard tonight and the bin is already outside waiting to be collected.

And that's it!

PS: I know I said that there would be some pictures from my vacations, but without Internet it would be a very cumbersome task... ;) Maybe now I'll be able to do it!

Vacations

My first vacations as an employed person are over. I was in Portugal for two weeks and returned yesterday to Cambridge.

During those two weeks I did more than two thousand kilometers by car in Portugal... this map shows the places where I've been.



So my itinerary was:

Porto -> Lisboa (stayed overnight) -> Alcácer do Sal (lunch) -> Sines (shopping and a swim in the ocean) -> Beach of "Ilha do Pessegueiro" (to remember my vacations as a kid) -> Vila Nova de Mil Fontes (for a swim and almost staying overnight) -> Sagres (to watch the lighthouse) -> Lagos (stayed overnight) -> Carvoeiro (lunch) -> Aljustrel (for almost 5 minutes) -> Beja (for shopping and wandering around) -> Évora (stayed overnight) -> Sesimbra (lunch) -> Lisboa (stayed overnight) -> Porto (to change luggage) -> Viana do Castelo (popular party - stayed for two nights) -> Braga (pick up my cousin) -> Porto (to change luggage again) -> Tomar (Music Festival "Bons Sons") -> Santa Cruz (stayed for three nights, beach, family, cards games, and general fun) -> Porto.

It was really nice to wander around without no specific destination, being able to change course whenever I wanted to. I shall do this again, maybe for a longer period. =)

Future posts might contain pictures! =)

There are things that never change...

In my last post here I wrote that I would finish changing my blog's template. But I haven't got back to it yet... and am feeling so lazy lately that I don't think I'll get back to it before September. Hope it doesn't hurt your eyes too much.

Life is going pretty well here in Cambridge. Until last week the weather was amazingly good, which made this city feel even better than it did before. The only downside of it were the colours of the city. The gardens and park didn't get enough water in July and are now a bit more yellow than they were. This made me realise how complicated it would be to have so many parks and gardens in Portugal. Here they don't have watering systems, the rain does the trick... Still I would love that Portugal had have a tenth of the green spaces that we have here. Maybe when I return. ;)

In the Summer the colour of the grass is not only that changes, but also the city crowd. The undergraduate students have returned to their home towns, but the city isn't empty at all. An uncountable number of tourists and "English courses" students have invaded the city and clutter all the streets and roads, specially in the centre. And in the evenings they fill up the parks... and make me think how nice it was to be a teenager. =)

Well now I have to go have dinner at the Jamie's Italian restaurant.... so maybe I'll write some more some other day.

Yes you're in the middle (right place)!

Sorry for the change. I'm just messing around with the new Blogger template designer. I was a bit tired of my old template so I decided to change. But now I feel more like sleeping than trying things out, so I'll leave it as it is, and will back to it later. =)

And this is an amazing chance to put this image in my blog:



A good old "under construction" image! How lovely is that? Taken from here. Oh the 90's! =)

PS: Obviously if you're using a feed reader you probably won't even notice any change. =) Good for you!

Taste of London

Last saturday I went with Mariana and Edward, a friend of ours to a food festival in London, called "Taste of London".

The event took place in Regent's Park and consisted of different stands from some of the best restaurants in London, where they sold or, in some cases, offered their specialities.

There were different types of food, from japanese to argentinian and everything that I tasted (and that I can remember) was very good. =)

Unfortunately there wasn't any portuguese restaurant in the event. But there ware Portuguese wines in a wine testing stand, unfortunately that was on Friday, and we went on Saturday.

The best things I had was some japanese noodles, a lamb hamburger and an amazing beef steak from an argentinian restaurant called "Gaucho". I have to go to this last restaurant to have a complete steak. Some friends' of mine have told me that is one of the best steaks they ever ate. So I need to check it. =)

It was a really nice and yummy saturday evening. Thanks Edward for the idea. =)

And now I'm hungry!

Go Portugal!

The FIFA World Cup 2010 has started in the 11th of June and it has been full of emotion and surprises.

Portugal played their first match today and they got an amazing victory by 7-0 against North Korea. It was an amazing match and very different from our first match against Ivory Coast which finished with a 0-0 draw.

The only sad thing about today's match was the place where I watched it. Since it was at 12.30h I ended up watching it in my computer at work, unlike the first match which I watched in the pub with a bunch of portuguese people that live here in Cambridge. And so you might imagine how annoying it is to see your team scoring for 7 times and you not being able to scream even once. I've all these goal screams packed for the next opportunity now. Hopefully Portugal will have score more goals for me to unleash them.

Anyway it was cool enough to bug my co-workers everytime Portugal scored a goal. =)

And mind you I know the match was against North Korea, but at least until Friday no one can stop me from celebrating this amazing victory! =)

And next Friday I hope to be in the pub to watch Portugal against Brasil!=)

Enjoy the World Cup! And if by any chance you feel like buying me a world cup official ball (the real thing) just do it, because I'd be more than glad to have one! =D

Go Portugal!! =D

British spirit

Doing a barbecue even if it's raining! Because this is the English Spring/Summer!

This was a fine weekend. Thanks to João for welcoming me in Coventry and to Matt to rescuing us from Coventry and inviting us to a barbecue in Oxford! :)

Nice city Oxford, but I still like Cambridge more! :p

Cambridge by bike

A few weeks ago a friend of Mariana gave me a bicycle that had been stopped at his door for one year. After a lot of oil and some new pieces the bike is almost as good as new! :) And now I arrive faster everywhere! Still when I'm not in a hurry or feeling lazy I like to walk. :)

Powerful songs

Just read a blog post about this song. I think I've heard it for the first time in some TV Series and it always touched me. First the tone and Jeff Buckley's voice and then the lyrics, and finally everything together.

Everytime I hear or see something as beatufil as this music I'm amazed how Man with all its faults is capable of creating something so beatiful.

Benfica Champion of the Portuguese League 2009/2010

YAY! \o/ =D

Thank you

Um cantinho, um violão,
Esse amor numa canção,
P'ra fazer feliz a quem se ama,
Muita calma p'ra pensar e ter tempo p'ra sonhar,
Da janela vê-se o Corcovado,
O Redentor que lindo.

Quero a vida sempre assim,
Com você perto de mim,
Até o apagar da velha chama,
E eu que era triste,
Descrente de cinismo,
Ao encontrar você eu conheci,
O que é Felicidade, Meu Amor.

O que é Felicidade, Meu Amor

de Tom Jobim

Ageing

Today for the first time in my life I went to a Doctor, in this case a Dentist, that is younger than me... one or two years younger.

You know what this means, don't you? Yes, time hasn't stopped for me...

At least the Dentist told me that my teeth are awesome! \o/ And I believe that he didn't say it because he's my friend, but maybe that helped. ;)


PS: At least it was cheap... (you see... there's the sign of ageing again... =P)

Spring

I think that today is the second consecutive day of Spring here in Cambridge! And this is now the view from my bedroom window! :)

Hope it lasts!

Easter gifts!

First of all Mariana and I just want to thank Carlos and Mara for their visit last week! :) It was really good to have them! I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did, and that they've liked Cambridge enough to come back! Even though I'm not the most organised tourist guide I think we managed to see most interesting things here in Cambridge!! Thank you very much :D!

This Easter we are staying in Cambridge enjoying the Holidays, resting and doing nothing. Putting into practice what the Italians define as the 'dolce fare niente' (not entirely sure about the spelling).

Since staying at home is cheaper than going anywhere else Mariana and I thought about buying something for ourselves. And so we went to HMV, which always has nice promotions, and bought a bunch of DVD's. We bought some classics that we had never watched and some others we felt like watching again, and which we thought it is nice to have. And we also bought some new ones!

What do you think about these movies?

This is turning to be a very cultural long weekend!

Happy Easter to you all! :)